Good question! I’m against mandatory medical treatment. But I’m also pragmatic and recognize that having a belief doesn’t mean that belief must be enforced at all costs.

Any predicament that boils down to “one of these parties’ freedoms needs to be impinged” demands flexibility of values. The world isn’t perfect like that.

If she refuses to cooperate and find a compromise (like staying away from people if she continues to be a risk to their lives), then regrettably, the least evil option is probably mandatory treatment. But I’m truly eager to find an alternative. Any alternative. As long as it isn’t “just let her hurt people.”

P.S. I appreciate this discussion. Please don’t think I’m coming after you— just the argument.

> I’m also pragmatic and recognize that having a belief doesn’t mean that belief must be enforced at all costs.

But you said two comments ago you were “absolutely” against forced medical treatment. This clearly has softened?

I bring this up not to dunk on you but to acknowledge a prior point you made which I think is a strong one: “people start bending reality rather than recognizing the hypocrisy of their beliefs”

I hasten to add I’m also not calling you a hypocrite! But I quote that, and in particular the “bending reality” part, because I think this goes both ways, not for just one party in a debate.

One lesson from me from Covid was that no one side in a debate has a monopoly on the practice of subordinating hard facts to emotion or prior belief and that we all have to bend over backwards to point out flawed reasoning even when it supports a position we are inclined to like. That was the whole point of my very first post in this thread.

I definitely concede that point. Perhaps I should say “I’m strongly against it”. Absolute is too absolute. Clearly I am not absolute on this belief.

Whatever word communicates, “only when there is no less evil alternative.”